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Rock Climbing



Sun 22 Mar 2015 9:00am - 5:00pm

Posted by Rodney P on Thu, 12 Feb 2015
Leaders: Aaron L
Standard: Intermediate
Meeting: Tue, 17 Mar 2015, 7:30 pm


Requirements: Have own personal climbing gear (harness, shoes, belay device etc). Helmets may be hired from the club. You must have a lead pass for a Melbourne climbing gym. Jules, Roisin and Aaron can advise you on how to get one but you will need to go to a course if you don't already know how to lead climb!

Anyone who has gotten the "climbing bug" and wants to learn to lead climb outdoors this year, this is the first module in a 3 part course designed to teach you everything you need to know about climbing safely in the outdoors.  The reason it is in 3 modules is to give you time to get enough experience in each module to learn the next.  Remember also that the focus of these courses is on safety - not your climbing ability.

In past years this was run as 3.5 modules - the first 0.5 "mini" module was teaching top-rope indoor climbers how to lead climb indoors.  That mini-module will no longer be run - this year the first pre-requisite to come on these courses is to already have a lead-pass from an indoor climbing gym, or to demonstrate your ability to lead climb and lead-belay safely indoors.  All of the Gyms in Melbourne have lead courses available if you don't already have the lead-climbing skill, and if you do already have them then lead passes do not cost anything - just call the gym and ask when the next "lead checks" are scheduled.

A description of all three  modules to the course are as follows (more in-depth descriptions can be found by looking at the module itself):

Learn To Lead 1 - Sport Climbing Outdoors

Pre-requisites: Must have a lead pass dated prior to 20/3/2015 from any indoor climbing gym in Melbourne, and have used it to lead-climb indoors at least 3 times this semester (yes, you only have a couple of weeks to achieve this).  You must also have mastered the clip-training board in the MUMC clubrooms.

Course content: We will take the skills you know on indoor plastic into the outdoor environment.  We will teach you how to set up anchors on pre-bolted rock, as well as returning safely to the ground with all of your gear. This lesson is also about climbing in terrain where the leader expects to fall off.  You will practice ways to fall and ways to catch falling leaders that minimise the chance of injury. You will also revise some things that are merely good habits in other climbing, but become essential safety measures in this context.

This will run at Camels Hump, and the max leader to beginner ratio for this trip is 1:4.

Costs: Course fee $30, but you get this back as credit in the gear store.  Gear hire $15.  Petrol by the formula.

 

This module sets you up to attend the follow-on modules, though it is not a pre-requisite (you can jump in wherever your current skill set allows):

Learn To Lead 2 - Trad Climbing will take what you have learned (and practiced) and add the difficult element of traditional gear placements, including trad anchors.  This course will not cover multi-pitch climbing, but focus on single-pitch and returning safely to the ground with all of your gear.  See the trip description for more details.

Learn To Lead 3 - Multi-Pitch In the final module of this series we will again take what you have learned and apply it to rock faces much higher than 30m.  See the trip description for more details.


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